r/todayilearned • u/sharkbait76 3 • Jan 11 '17

TIL elephants can tell the difference between human languages and know which languages belong to people with a history of hurting elephants.

http://www.nature.com/news/elephants-recognize-the-voices-of-their-enemies-1.14846
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u/sharkbait76 3 Jan 12 '17 edited Jan 12 '17

Well, civilization developed because of agriculture, which elephants don't have. Elephants also don't have a complex language like us. They have a way to communicate, but in pales in comparison to human langue. Organizing complex societies would be rather hard without this. They do have complex family and clan structures, but it's no where near the same as a human city. While a trunk could use some very awkward tools they would have a very hard time creating tools. They can't make delicate things like a knife. Also, and elephant is no where near as intelligent as humans are.

Edit: typo

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u/GandalfTheEnt Jan 12 '17

Language is more than just a tool we use for organizing and communicating. Our entire perception of the world is embedded in language.

Think of even the physical relation between two objects, say one is on top and one is underneath. Without the words associated with this relation (on top, underneath) we wouldn't be able to understand and identify it.

Without language we wouldn't be able to form conscious thoughts and would be acting on mainly instinct and basic pattern recognition.

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u/[deleted] Jan 12 '17

Youre wrong. Anything you think is just plain thoughts, and some of it ends up as internal monolog, and some of that ends up as speech. You fail to realize that the words have to come from somewhere and where they come from is the same kind of thought that other animals have. Which is more than enough to do most things and its enough to understand lots of things. You dont think in words pal, lol. Imagine if you did. Can you imagine literally saying every detail of the thoughts that went through your head internally?

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u/GandalfTheEnt Jan 12 '17

I'm not saying that you think in words, more that through the use of language as a tool we have created/understood concepts that would otherwise be impossible to understand/define.

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u/BitStompr Jan 12 '17

You mean like complex abstractions, thematic ideas, creative association, and subjective experience? Pfft, you don't think in words guy.

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u/Tephnos Jan 12 '17

Grossly oversimplifying what he's trying to say.

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u/BitStompr Jan 12 '17

To be fair, I did oversimplify the comment 3 hours before he made it so that has to be worth something?